New Delhi: In a first, India’s under-five mortality rate has been estimated at 39 deaths per 1,000 live births, which makes it the same as the global average, the Indian Express reported. The under-five mortality rate is the probability of dying between birth and exactly five years of age, expressed per 1,000 live births.
The under-five mortality of the girl child is 40 deaths per 1,000 live births, while the under-five mortality of the boy child is slightly below, at 39 deaths per 1,000 live births. This diference in gender gap has reduced significantly from 2012.
The under-five mortality in India was recorded below one million in 2017 for the first time in five years, according to a report by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNIGME).
The number came down to 9,89,000 from 1.08 million in 2016. In 2016, India’s infant mortality rate was 44 per 1,000 live births.
The study reportedly estimates that one child under 15 years dies every five seconds around the world but India’s share of global child deaths, for the first time, equals its share in the global birth cohort.
According to the Indian Express report,
Following initiatives like Mission Indradhanush, Mother and Child Tracking System and neonatal ICUs in every district, India has made remarkable progress over the last five years. The number of Indian children who died before their fifth birthday went below one million for the first time. But at 9,89,000, the absolute number is still staggering.
However, lauding the drop in under-five mortality for the first time in five years, Yasmin Ali Haque, representative at the UNICEF India, said the efforts for improving institutional delivery, along with countrywide scale up of special newborn care units and strengthening of routine immunisation, have been instrumental in achieving this. “India continues to show impressive gains in reduction of child deaths with under-five deaths in India falling below the one million mark for the first time as per the latest UN estimates,” she said.
“Even more heartening is the fourfold decline in the gender gap in survival of the girl child over last five years. The investment on ensuring holistic nutrition under POSHAN and national commitment to make India open defecation free by 2019, are steps that will help to accelerate progress further,” Haque added.
The report released by the UNICEF, the WHO, the United Nations Population Division and the World Bank Group said 6,05,000 neonatal deaths were reported in India in 2017, while the number of deaths among children aged 514 was 1,52,000.
Dr Gagan Gupta, chief of health at the WHO, said India is making good progress in combating reasons leading to infant deaths through a number of government-led initiatives. “About 18% of children born globally are from India,” he said, adding, “The main reasons behind infant deaths remain to be lack of access to water, sanitation, proper nutrition or basic health services. This is also the first time that the number of deaths under five is equal to number of births. The next step would be reducing the number of deaths.”
(With PTI inputs)